Sirens wailing all this evening and long into the night. The first-round vote results are in. Macron and LePen will face off on May 7th, separated by only one or two points. Around the Place de la Bastille people coming together to protest ‘the score’ of LePen. Clearly well-informed phalanxes of armoured police and vehicles […]

As many have pointed out, it’s hell to think that in this century, science and the principles of the enlightment would be fighting for acceptance, even survival. Yesterday, the Paris March for Science assembled, appropriately enough, in front of the Jardin des Plantes. A small band played. Two notables gave succinct speeches in defense of […]

Paris this week is sunny and unseasonably cold, with a quirky, biting wind. A shivering snake of art-appreciators fills the space in front of the Pompidou, inching forward to the security check. The attraction is a major retrospective of Cy Twombly, the master of runic squiggles and suggestive word-juxtapositions that may well mean something, […]

Book Review: Peter Handke — A Writer At War With Himself My article, reprinted from the Boston-based, highly informative artsfuse.org. Feb 28, 2017. The imperative to engage with landscape and thus leave or at least minimize the self, has become of great importance to Peter Handke. The Moravian Night by Peter Handke. Translated from the […]

A quartet, to begin with. Paris is so damned beautiful. Unabashedly beautiful. Pdv has lived in/ known many cities, including Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Boston, Munich, London, Rio, Delhi, Mumbai. And yet after years that could have led to dull familiarity, I am heartstruck every time I go outside. Please consider the quartet of photos […]

(photo: still from documentary by Laurent Grasso, ‘Les Elysees,’ Galerie Perrotin) Only yesterday, wandering in a chilly Seine mist on the day of D. Trump’s press conference, PdV comtemplated a riff on ‘voter envy.’ As an American, how can one not envy the French electorate? By all accounts, they’ll face an embarrassment of riches next […]

Old-enough readers will no doubt recall the Seven Dwarfs show – the Democratic primary debates that first revealed to the nation the charm and intelligence of a heretofore unknown named Bill Clinton. Last Thursday, France held its own debate of seven presidential […]